More than math to Casey polls

Before everybody jumps off the Bob Casey bandwagon because of his lousy polls lately, let's remember a bit of history.

Sen. Bob Casey carries the state's premier political brand name.

The Casey name is respected by large parts of the electorate because of the senator's father, the late Gov. Bob Casey, but also because of the senator himself.

The senator has been at elected public service for more than 16 years now so he's built up a lot of good will on his own. It's not just his dad any more.

He's won all but one election. Arguably, the one he lost was to a phenomenon, Ed Rendell, who easily beat Mr. Casey in the 2002 Democratic primary by winning only 10 counties - all of them around Philadelphia except for Centre County, where a lot of Philadelphia area kids go to school at Penn State University.

In 2006, Mr. Casey absolutely trounced that darling of conservative Republicans, Sen. Rick Santorum, by 17.4 percentage points in one of the most lopsided Senate races in state history.

Something happened in that race that a lot of people forget.

Summertime polls showed Mr. Casey leading by double-digit margins, but in August the race tightened. Multiple polls had Mr. Casey's edge down to 5 to 9 points, and the reason was simple.

In late June, Mr. Santorum began airing television commercials. Mr. Casey's first commercial did not air for almost two months, allowing Mr. Santorum a free ride.

When Mr. Casey finally went on the air on Aug. 24, his numbers rose almost immediately. His lead went back and forth between single and double digits, then deep into double digits just before the election.

If all that sounds familiar, just look at the race between Mr. Casey and Republican Tom Smith.

Mr. Smith started airing TV commercials in early August - his ads have been really effective - and had the airwaves largely to himself until early to mid-September, depending on the television market.

Mr. Casey couldn't afford to air commercials earlier in 2006 because Mr. Santorum had a lot more money, and he couldn't afford to air them earlier this year because Mr. Smith had more money.

Casey fans can take heart in that to explain away the tightening polls, but the lack of commercials can't explain away everything, and there are reasons for concern.

First, look at Mr. Casey's third-quarter fundraising.

Way ahead in the polls, the senator raised only $1.4 million compared with Mr. Smith's $1.6 million. In the 2006 third quarter, knowing Mr. Santorum would be competitive and well-funded, Mr. Casey raised almost $4 million.

His take this time is simply way too small when he knew he faced a wealthy opponent who could drop millions of dollars of his own money on the race at a moment's notice, which is exactly what Mr. Smith has done - almost $16.5 million so far. It's a reason he ended up $2 million behind in cash on hand at the end of September.

Second, Mr. Casey has aired commercials for a month, but his lead has narrowed most in the last month.

Third, and maybe worst for him, are the numbers underlying his shrinking lead.

Economic woes certainly hurt, but the Muhlenberg College poll released Monday was a shock.

In August, the poll had Mr. Casey seen favorably by 40 percent, unfavorably by 26 percent. Another 31 percent were unsure or neutral about him and 2 percent said they hadn't heard of him.

By the middle of this month, Mr. Smith's commercials had turned that around. Muhlenberg had Mr. Casey's favorability number at 32 percent, unfavorability at 36 percent, with 28 percent unsure or neutral and 4 percent never having heard of him.

By comparison, Mr. Smith's favorability was at 29 percent, unfavorability at 23 percent, with 33 percent neutral or unsure of him and 15 percent not having heard of him.

In a matter of two months, the unknown challenger was seen about as favorably as the guy with the political brand name and less unfavorably, and they are about even in numbers of voters who are unsure or neutral about them.

That is startling for a six-year incumbent.

It also is not surprising.

As early as February 2009, two years into his term, a Franklin & Marshall College poll showed Mr. Casey's favorability rating at 30 percent, his unfavorability at 17 percent, 21 percent undecided and 32 percent not knowing what to think of him. Back then, the Casey camp fired back by pointing out his job approval rating in another poll was at 52 percent.

More than 3½ years later, Mr. Casey is in the same neighborhood as that F&M poll.

"We've talked about this before, about how soft his support was," said G. Terry Madonna, Ph.D., the noted F&M pollster and political analyst. "We had these huge numbers of people who were quite unaware of what he was doing."

That's why Mr. Casey stands where he does today and why he had better be worried.

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